The Deadly Pawns of Saudi Arabia
by PATRICK COCKBURN
Donors in Saudi Arabia have notoriously played a pivotal role in creating and maintaining Sunni jihadist groups over the past 30 years. But, for all the supposed determination of the United States and its allies since 9/11 to fight the war on terror, they have showed astonishing restraint when it comes to pressuring Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies to turn off the financial tap that keeps the jihadists in business.
Compare two US pronouncements stressing the significance of these donations and basing their conclusions on the best intelligence available to the US government. The first is in the 9/11 Commission Report which found that Osama bin Laden did not fund al-Qaida because from 1994 he had little money of his own but relied on his ties to wealthy Saudi individuals established during the Afghan war in the 1980s. Quoting, among other sources, a CIA analytic report dated 14 November 2002, the commission concluded that al-Qaida appears to have relied on a core group of financial facilitators who raised money from a variety of donors and other fund-raisers primarily in the Gulf countries and particularly in Saudi Arabia.
Seven years pass after the CIA report was written during which the US invades Iraq fighting, among others, the newly established Iraq franchise of al-Qaida, and becomes engaged in a bloody war in Afghanistan with the resurgent Taliban. American drones are fired at supposed al-Qaida-linked targets located everywhere from Waziristan in north-west Pakistan to the hill villages of Yemen. But during this time Washington can manage no more than a few gentle reproofs to Saudi Arabia on its promotion of fanatical and sectarian Sunni militancy outside its own borders.
Evidence for this is a fascinating telegram on terrorist finance from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to US embassies, dated 30 December 2009 and released by WikiLeaks the following year. She says firmly that donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide. Eight years after 9/11, when 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, Mrs Clinton reiterates in the same message that Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT [Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan] and other terrorist groups. Saudi Arabia was most important in sustaining these groups, but it was not quite alone since al-Qaida and other groups continue to exploit Kuwait both as a source of funds and as a key transit point.
in full: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/09/the-deadly-pawns-of-saudi-arabia/
bemildred
(90,061 posts)It's because it's bullshit, that's why it doesn't work.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)how twisted it all is and unnecessarily so..some things in this world we cannot control but here our foreign policy,
it's like were just asking for it. Turn countries into rubble, turn it all upside down..then gasp...what went wrong?
The shameless assholes:
*Suppose a hundredth part of this merciless onslaught had been directed against Western targets rather than against Shia Muslims, would the Americans and the British be so accommodating to the Saudis, Kuwaitis and Emiratis? It is this that gives a sense of phoniness to boasts by the vastly expanded security bureaucracies in Washington and London about their success in combating terror justifying vast budgets for themselves and restricted civil liberties for everybody else. All the drones in the world fired into Pashtun villages in Pakistan or their counterparts in Yemen or Somalia are not going to make much difference if the Sunni jihadists in Iraq and Syria ever decide as Osama bin Laden did before them that their main enemies are to be found not among the Shia but in the United States and Britain.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)yurbud
(39,405 posts)Here's the story from the Guardian and some links on his terror resume.
BAE: secret papers reveal threats from Saudi prince
Spectre of 'another 7/7' led Tony Blair to block bribes inquiry, high court told
* David Leigh and Rob Evans
* The Guardian,
* Friday February 15 2008
Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.
Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.
Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.
He was accused in yesterday's high court hearings of flying to London in December 2006 and uttering threats which made the prime minister, Tony Blair, force an end to the Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribery allegations involving Bandar and his family.
FULL TEXT
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Thank you for the post.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)If it was real, we would simply freeze Saudi bank accounts and it would be over.